Were this blog a military operation, now would be the time for an After Action Review. Few U.S. Army records expose the gap between intention and outcome more clearly than the AAR, where plans are tested against reality and the Army tries, on paper, to make sense of what actually happened.
According to the Army: “[a]n after action review is a guided analysis of an organization’s performance, conducted at appropriate times during and at the conclusion of a training event or operation with the objective of improving future performance.” (Department of the Army 4–29). The purpose is to improve by replicating what went right and correcting what went wrong.
Errata are the literary relatives of the AAR. They are usually compiled after initial publication of a work and printed as an insert or addendum to the work. Although they do not analyze or seek to improve, they correct past errors.
I have wanted to write something important enough to merit errata and something with few enough errors that they would fit on one sheet. I have just completed nine posts, and, as a tenth, I have decided to assess what I intended to do in contrast to what I have done.
I intended to provoke thought and discussion, encourage other readers, and introduce thinkers and writers by posting entries of five hundred words or fewer each week. (Post One – EX NIHILIO).
Two of these goals are easy to measure empirically. Of the nine posts, all exceed five hundred words. The shortest one is more than six hundred words (Post One), and the longest is more than 1600 words (Post Nine). Fail.
In the eleven weeks of this blog’s existence, I have published a total of ten posts, not weekly, but ten in eleven weeks. Fail.
The other goals are more difficult to assess because they require subjective, non-empirical, judgment. For example, I hope I have provoked some thought and discussion and encouraged others to read more, but I do not know.
Also, for example, I have cited, in order of appearance, Jorge Luis Borges, George Orwell, Charles Bukowski, O. Henry, Pablo Neruda, David Foster Wallace, Charles Baudelaire, Jack Kerouac, Carrie Fisher, Benjamin Franklin, T. S. Eliot, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Wolfgang Langewiesche. I hope at least one of these writers is new to the audience, but, again, I do not know.
I do know that I enjoy recognizing relationships and patterns that are uncommon. I have discussed Wallace, Baudelaire, and Kerouac in “What the Hell Is Water?” (Post Three); I have paired Benajamin Franklin with Carrie Fisher in “From Carrie Fisher” (Post Five); and I have juxtaposed Antoine de Saint-Exupéry with Rainer Marie Rilke in “Cross-Training” (Post Nine).
These are not associations that search engines recognize. I would rather approach an issue obliquely, requiring reader participation, than state a conclusion directly. If the oblique approach prompts identification or recognition of a relationship or pattern by the reader, then a post is a success because: “The audience does not see the point unless they themselves add something.” (Aristotle, Poetics ch.26).
The intentions in Post One were arbitrary. After the experience of writing nine posts, those intentions are not rules for strict enforcement, but good guidelines. For example, the experience has taught me that writing a post of five hundred words or fewer is difficult.
I intend to continue to write this blog with eclectic patterns requiring reader participation, but as Wallace said of his commencement speech at Kenyon: “Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish.” (Wallace).
Post Ten – ERRATA is 665 words. Fail.
I. Librarian
Works Cited:
Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher, Dover Publications, 1997.
Department of the Army. FM 7‑0: Training. Headquarters, Department of the Army, 14 June 2021, pp. 4–29.
Wallace, David Foster. “This Is Water.” Commencement address, Kenyon College, 21 May 2005.
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